Children's Play and Play Material

1. Value of Play and of Homemade Play Materials.
Children learn more from play than from any other single activity. So it is important that parents provide children with the kinds of toys that will help them to learn. Play space, toys, materials for play, and someone his own age to play with are as necessary to his all-round development as are food and sleep. They are as important to his growth as are the soil, sun, and rain to a plant. Good soil and growing conditions produce good crops. It is so with children. Good materials and growing conditions in the home produce healthy and happy children.
Good toys are as essential to his job of growing as are good tools to a carpenter. With his play space as his shop, and his toys as his tools, he works hard at his play (his business of growing), so eager is he to use all of his rapidly developing powers. If his playthings are of a good assortment, his play will be of many kinds: he uses his body vigorously and with ever increasing skill with certain kinds of equipment; he creates with and changes the form of other kinds of material, such as clay and wood, to meet his needs and please his fancy; he thinks hard as he works out just how to make the things he wants to; he imitates and "tries on" the life that goes on about him as he plays with housekeeping toys, small cars and trains; he is happily engaged in doing the things he plans and carries through himself, and sings and chuckles over his efforts, or plays quietly, absorbed in his undertakings. For such play, with a wide variety of materials that can be shared with playmates, he needs uninterrupted time each day.
Many toys and play materials may be homemade. Not only are toys made at home less expensive but they offer older members of	family a chance
to share in the play life of the little child by the making of his toys. Older brothers and sisters, parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents and friends become interested in the child’s play and may show great ingenuity in meeting the child’s needs by converting waste materials, such as boxes and baskets, into attractive toys. This sharing in a common enterprise to meet the needs of one of its members is a family experience too precious to let go by. Toy making at home also gives the young child an opportunity to see something made from start to finish—a rare experience in these modern times. He finds each step in the construction of the toy of interest and so simple that he can understand it. The finished toy means more to him because he has waited and watched and helped during the construction.
Its very simplicity and crudeness are valuable attributes. Before long, the child is doing more and more in the making of his own play materials because he has participated in their construction from the beginning. And the experience of sharing—of working something out together, of shared joy of achievement will help to create a depth of feeling and a fine relationship between a small son and his father that will last and stand them in good stead during the teen-years and far beyond. It is through such family activities that we learn to understand each other.
2.	What the child learns from play.
Note: The list below is only suggestive.
a.	He learns socially acceptable ways of behaving; eg. sharing, taking turns, cooperating on a common project; ways of making friends; to share his ideas with others; acceptable ways of getting the use of a toy; of influencing others; and also of standing up for himself.